


Nine Crimes

by Direttissima



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Cheating, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Direttissima/pseuds/Direttissima
Summary: When Sebastian gets a new teammate, his life gets more complicated than expected as the young kid they hired to replace his best friend triggers something inside him that he had hoped to bury for the rest of his life.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Sebastian Vettel
Comments: 20
Kudos: 32





	1. Preparations

**Author's Note:**

> **This is not real, it's just fictional and none of it ever happened.**  
>  (Rating might change to mature, haven't made my mind up yet.)  
> Also: This is not related to "the other verse", it's stand-alone and has been haunting me for a bit and since I have some writer's block with the other one, I poured this out between training sessions yesterday. (Because I never learn and thought it would be wise to have yet another unfinished work...)

**February 2019**

“First day back at the office tomorrow?” She smiles as she passes him his coffee, no sugar, drop of milk, just the way he’d like it.

“Yeah.” Sebastian returns the smile, trying for warm, though it feels like it might not reach his eyes. It’s a bit weird lately, the melancholy hanging over him that not even her radiant freshness nor the kids’ laughter can chase away. He blames it on missing racing mostly, because that’s what it has to be after all. “Things will be different I guess,” he mutters. 

“Oh, you think so?” She sits down across from him with her tea. Earl grey. Like always. He smiles despite himself. The comfort is still there, the comfort of home, familiarity, of knowing exactly what to expect. It’s warm and beautiful. _Their home_. These morning hours are magical, when it's still dark out, the sun barely starting to rise, the outside slightly snowy but everything inside cozy. She's made it a safe haven for all of them and he's grateful that she keeps him his backbone, his roots.

“I mean, Kimi won’t be there.” He shrugs. It’s a loss for him and the team. Kimi and him, they got along great, they were good at developing the car together. Not that the young one doesn’t deserve a shot, but they could have waited with him for another year for all Sebastian cares. Let him learn in the Alfa for a moment longer.

“I see,” she smiles sadly, nods. Her voice is so full of empathy, it’s enveloping him in the best way. “Will you miss him a lot?”

“Probably?" He sighs and thinks about it, tries to figure out the differences to last year. "We can always meet up for a bit when we’re racing but not at all for the PR things, like, even now, with the seat fit and the launch. I won’t see him but I’ll have to spend a lot of time with the kid I guess.” It is how it is, at the end of the day, they do spend most their time with their teammate and it's only getting more over the past years where everybody is trying to make them look more approachable and relatable on social media. Not to forget that stupidity that is a netflix series about them.

“The _kid_?” She chuckles softly. “He’s not that young, is he?”

“Twenty-one, I think,” he shakes his head with a disbelieving smile. Secretly, he wishes he was that young once again, if he’s being honest. It’s not fair towards the kid, being jealous because the world’s still open for him, wide. While Sebastian apparently has reached the point to settle for whatever this is. The hunger from the earlier years slowly vanishing.

“Okay, that is young.” She smiles. “He looks nice enough though.”

“I’m sure he is.” But he’s not Kimi, he doesn’t say. At least, he seemed mostly quiet last year. Almost shy. So, he won’t be like Dan. Talking Sebastian’s ear off, loud, joking. Ever present. At least, it won’t be like that again. And well, he does have a different background... impressive and so sad. Sebastian remembers the first time he more or less acknowledged him, in Nice, and the occasion was not a good one.

His fingers draw patterns on their wooden dining table, following the lines from the tree’s rings and the spots where its branches sat. In the distance, he hears the girls laugh. They’re watching TV, like every morning during breakfast, one show of Peppa Pig so the adults could have a hot drink in peace.

“You still need to pack, don’t you?” She carries her mug to the sink and soaks it and he keeps nursing his coffee, eyes following her movements as she clears the table from breadcrumbs, plates, and cutlery.

“I do,” he concedes. It’s not like him, waiting to pack his things until the last minute. Usually, he’s early. This year, he’s been stalling everything it seems.

“Need any help? I’ve done all the laundry, everything’s ready in the closet.”

“No, I’ll be okay,” he carries his own mug to the sink, takes a moment to hug her and kiss her temple, steal a moment of happiness. “I’m an adult, you know?”

She laughs and returns the kiss, nipping on his bottom lip and then she flips her blonde hair back and gives him a mischievous look. “Are you sure you’re all grown up? Because last I heard, you like to play with cars a lot.”


	2. Formation Lap

The kid does in fact turn out to be quiet, which is a plus. Also, he is friendly. Polite. Great manners. Without a doubt, the kid is an agreeable teammate. Yet, he’s not Kimi. Which, strictly speaking, is not his fault. Ferrari could have picked worse, Sebastian tells himself over and over, remembering the cheery Australian that had tried to befriend him at Red Bull.

Nonetheless, he catches himself frowning at the young guy more than he should.

“Do you mind him?” Britta asks one night, and it makes Sebastian blush, because he feels so petty.

“No,” he replies, but it comes out so defensive that she snorts.

“Why?” She raises an eyebrow. “He seems nice.”

And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?

The guy is only making it worse because he’s not even easy to hate while Sebastian wants to hate him so, so much.

And the more he glares at him… the more he smiles, the kinder he gets. Those puppy dog eyes and that insecure giggle and the way he always, always says how Sebastian is his idol. Flattering and so rude, attacking him like that when Sebastian came with every intention not to like him and to ask for Kimi back.

“He even brought me coffee yesterday,” he blurts out, fist balled on the table and Britta looks at him as if he’d gone mad.

“You, uh, you like coffee,” she starts slowly, her hand reaching for his arm, but he pulls away.

“I don’t not like him, okay?” He snaps this time, and she sighs but has mercy on him and stops it there.

The worst thing is that he smells weirdly nice. No, the absolute worst thing is that Sebastian not only noticed he smells nice, but he remembers the smell. That’s not even funny, because Sebastian has been racing for many, many years now and he’s had numerous teammates and he has never ever thought about their smell and it’s freaking him out.

…

“How did it go?” She asks, once again smiling at him over the edge of her mug, blowing the tea to make it cool down faster and he loves the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles, warmth streaming through him and he tries to ignore how it seems to not quite reach his core, how it seems a distance remains. And blames it on the last stressful days and the overall exhaustion that’s wearing him down.

Doesn’t help that it’s grey outside, not really getting any lighter today, pouring endlessly.

“Okay, I guess?” He frowns at his coffee. Why is it uncomfortable to talk about the launch?

“Did you miss Kimi a lot?”

The warmth in her voice is irritating him and he doesn’t understand why and suddenly the kitchen walls are closing in.

“No.” He’s clipped, unfriendly. She frowns. “I’ll go for a run.”

She cocks her head and her expression darkens. “In the pouring rain?”

“I need some exercise, I feel weird,” he mutters. Her hurried words of understand only irritate him more.

Ten miles, he runs ten miles that day, in the wind and downpour until he’s breathless, drenched and nauseous – and he still smells _him_ when he steps under the shower.

…

“Help him a bit with the data,” they say. And because he’s only an asshole on the inside, Sebastian does.

Which forces them to stand too close and then he smells him again and almost forgets how to even drive a Ferrari, he’s so out of it. What a strange reaction though. The kid looks up at him with those wide, curious eyes, ready to learn, and there’s all this unhidden hero-worship. With all the teammates he’d had, this one’s new.

Though when he notices one thing during testing, it’s that the boy might be a boy, but he sure doesn’t need any help with the data.

“He can do this by himself, he knows everything,” he says after the first day, “I don’t think I can help him anymore.”

The guy looks crestfallen, his mechanics look bewildered and Britta later scolds him for not being a team worker. It’s not even like that, he thinks, he really can’t help the kid. But he doesn’t say anything, because it’s also true that he doesn’t want to help him. (He would though, if he could, he swears… he’s not that type of guy.)

Maybe it’s wrong that he keeps calling him kid and boy in his head (and sometimes around other people) because it’s making himself underestimate the threat. And suddenly it’s the second race of the season and he’s beaming down on them from the podium and Sebastian feels shellshocked.

That day, he starts hating his guts (except for his smell, which still haunts him… and not exactly in a hateful way).

Of course, he’d walk up to him after the race, all happy and cheery and rosy. His cheeks blush pink. Not red, pink, and Sebastian doesn’t even understand why his brain suddenly feels the need to note this type of information.

“I just wanted to thank you, I guess,” the boy says, chuckling nervously and taking all the air from Sebastian’s lungs with it. “I couldn’t have done it without your support.”

Sebastian stares at the hand he’s holding out and takes it reluctantly, sees the way his eyes briefly rest on the wedding ring and doesn’t get why it’s making him shiver.

“No problem,” he mutters, while in fact. _Huge problem._ One he can’t put into words, but it’s sure there.

Media duties are strenuous, too, much more than they were with Kimi. With Kimi, he knew what to expect, he felt at ease. In front of Charles, he can’t get rid of the feeling that he needs to perform. Can’t get the pressure away. Britta is getting annoyed with him because he’s always moody whenever there’s any press obligations. Charles gets more and more nervous around him which apparently only serves to make him try harder to be nice – setting Sebastian off every time it happens. And the team is wondering, too, Silvia giving him strange looks all the time. It’s inappropriate, the way he’s out of his mind just because his teammate changed. After all, he’s thirty-one, married with kids, four-times world champion. He’s the mature and calm one, not the anxious teenager.

When he tries hanging out with Kimi in between, Kimi is an anchor. True best friends. But when he tries to explain how he’s not getting along with Charles, even Kimi’s at a loss.

“Is a quiet kid though.” Kimi looks surprised. “Why don’t you like him?”

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Sebastian starts, but he’s interrupted.

“That’s what you said.”

“Then I said it wrong. I… I “

He can’t say it and then gives up, lets Kimi drown his sorrows with a glass of vodka.

“I think you should give the kid a chance,” Kimi says when they’re saying goodnight.

It’s not the advice he’d been hoping for.

…

Sebastian takes revenge for the last race by getting his podium in China. And yeah, he knows there were team orders, but he couldn’t care less and tells himself otherwise he would have overtaken anyway. He expects his teammate to be livid – and overhears him complain to his mechanics, making Sebastian gleeful about their upcoming confrontation.

The familiar smell hits him and then the kid is there, looking at him – and his eyes are fucking shining. Like a ray of sun and Sebastian means it in the most derogatory way possible.

“Congratulations on podium,” the boy, Charles, says, wide grin. Sebastian searches for anything fake, but it seems unbelievably sincere and it’s almost making him combust.

“Thanks,” he mutters, taking the hand as if it were a hot potato, and then he turns briskly and walks away.

Charles’ smell haunts him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry, I have the weirdest sorts of writer's block atm... but I hope hot and/or fluffy Sebchal in the other series tomorrow)


End file.
